Eagle Street College
by skyeward
Summary: Drabbles, inspired by kmeme and the poetry of Walt Whitman. Necessarily sensual in theme, otherwise loosely or not connected.
1. Whitman Does The Trick

"O you," a woman read softly, and even those two syllables rolled like honey through the Spectre's veins. She leaned forward to listen, as if being a few centimeters closer could somehow bring more of that voice - God, that voice - into her ears.

"O you," the words were repeated, "Whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you." The words flowed, smooth and steady like the unpunctuated line but with her own, rather suggestive stress patterns. The blue-clad woman stirred in her seat, uncomfortably aroused and painfully aware of it. Did she really have to murmur 'come' in quite that tone of voice? In just one spoken line, the smaller woman had utterly captivated her. It was fortunate that the poem was almost brutally short. Only two lines - although long ones - remained.

"As I walk by your side or sit near," the reader nearly purred, and had the soldier been Whitman himself she might have struggled for words to express her feelings at that moment, "or remain in the same room with you, little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me."

Later she would admit to only the most vague awareness of what had finally snapped her control. Was it the clipped cadence as Samantha purred about subtle electric fire, or the frankly suggestive way she'd drawled out 'within me' in that impossibly alluring accent? Ashley had no idea.

She pounced.


	2. Whitman Still Does It

"I am satisfied," she hears from the bed as she picks up her boots and pads, silently, towards the door. She freezes, and Samantha continues. "I see, dance, laugh, sing…"

The dark-skinned woman sits up in bed, the sheets spilling down her front and pooling in her waist, and there is honest joy in her voice - not the recrimination Ashley was expecting. "As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night," as indeed the Spectre had remained, dead to the world for nearly seven hours, "And withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread."

Ash hangs her head a little, ashamed both to have so abandoned herself the night before and to have attempted to sneak out in the morning as if that could make it somehow un-happen, could somehow wipe her slate clean of the attraction, previous and lingering, that had drawn her to the specialist's side to begin with.

She can't say any of that, of course.

"I didn't know you were so into poetry," she murmurs instead, boots still in hand and eyes only daring to flicker up towards the other woman for instants at a time. It's enough, though, to take in the bare expanses of smooth skin, to remember the softness of a body that has never seen combat, and to begin to grow excited all over again.

"I'm not," Sam replies, stretching and causing Ashley's heart to thud so loudly that she's put in mind of Poe, "But I picked up a few things here and there."

She should leave, should turn and make her walk of shame in the early-morning hours of the Citadel's day cycle, should flee the apartment that they have occupied with Shepard's permission but not her knowledge, should absolutely not linger here for even a moment longer.

"What else do you know?" she asks instead.

"Mostly the standard bits. Whitman was a special favourite of mine, you see." There's a smile in her voice and on her face, soft and promising, and the Spectre inches back towards her.

"Recite some more." It's a terrible idea, it's the worst idea she's had since jumping into the other woman's arms the night before, and yet she thrills at the idea.

"I sing the body electric," Samantha replies, her voice low and inviting, and Ashley is lost.


	3. Frost Works Too

Sam isn't the only one who can quote poetry in such a way as to leave her lover weak-kneed.

She wakes in the middle of the Normandy's night-cycle to a familiar pair of eyes, whiskey brown turned nearly black in the dim light. Ash lowers her mouth until it just brushes the shell of one dark ear, and just from that Sam's breathing falters - when the Spectre begins to speak, it nearly stops.

"The woods are lovely," Ash says, lips brushing Sam's skin with each sound, and the specialist can hear the weight of each word, knows what is being said.

"Dark," the woman above her continues, subtlety taking a hit when she nips at Sam's earlobe, "And deep…" She slots one leg between Sam's, eliciting a quiet squeak and causing the smaller woman to grab desperately at her shoulders - but Ash isn't done, and she refuses the kisses Sam tries to press to her mouth.

"But I have promises to keep," there's a wicked gleam in her eye, "And miles to go before I sleep." She rocks her hips forward, pressing her tightly-muscled thigh harder against its target as she murmurs the last line against eager brown lips. "And miles to go before…I…sleep."


End file.
